


And for those I cannot say

by Cecret



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Can be seen as a missing scene, Canon Compliant, Complicated Hellstrop - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Cheleanor, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Nightmares, TTDS-based, Unresolved Romantic Tension, because there's never enough TTDS fixes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecret/pseuds/Cecret
Summary: Eleanor and Michael have a much needed midnight talk. Post Employee of the Bearimy.
Relationships: Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	And for those I cannot say

**Author's Note:**

> "Soundtrack" of this fic:  
> \- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsoJGwRgxmk  
> \- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr4F9mYK4XA  
> \- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I39QkXoDAOA
> 
> (I usually write with instrumental covers on the background because the lyrics won't let me focus, but the music kinda helps me build the 'atmosphere' of the story)

He should not be surprised by the fact that Eleanor Shellstrop could still surprise him.

If anything, he ought to be perplexed by the apparent fact that he was able to _sleep_ now. At least, that would explain why he could not hear her steps or catch the scent of her shampoo, the two warnings that always announced her arrival, and sometimes gave him time to prepare for that electric presence constantly nearby. It would also make sense of the way his eyes suddenly opened when two arms wrapped around his body and a chest pressed itself against his back.

Perhaps ‘startlement’ was a better word, because at the barely perceptible jump he gave, Michael felt her embrace slightly loosening around him, so he rushed to place his hands on top of her own, a silent invitation ―perhaps a request or even a plea― to keep her there. His fingers wrapped around knuckles that were already clinging to his shirt, somehow managing to land on the exact same spot where his pain had been clotting.

Did it even matter if he had an actual heart or not?

Maybe that was just another of the lies his bosses used to tell him. 

“Buddy, I’m so sorry.”

Oh. 

There was the surprise.

“Why?”

She nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck before a whisper escaped her, right at the moment a wave crashed against the shore.

“For all the things I haven’t told you.”

Her knees shifted on the sand as her frame settled behind him, and he let himself lean back a little to meet her, feeling her close for the first time after days of barely looking at each other in the eyes and speaking only when the experiment required it.

He was beginning to feel starved of her touch.

“I’m the one who’s sorry, Eleanor.”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. It was just a stupid lie.”

“Three lies, actually.”

“Now you’re the one who’s counting?”

Her laugh was weak and shaky, but it was still the closest thing to a genuine smile he had been able to witness in weeks. Maybe Michael was not the most clever being around, but he was smart enough not to deem himself capable of making her truly happy, so he stayed silent and simply followed her movements with his eyes while she squeezed his shoulders and sat down beside him. Her hair was slightly messy, so it was clear she had already slept through part of the night. Her eyes were smeared with mascara (no wrinkles if you’re already dead, so why bother?), and her feet were covered by an exact replica of the shrimp-patterned slippers the ‘anonymous investor’ of a pretty strange experiment from Saint John’s University had included amongst her Christmas presents.

(And the smile she had given him after learning the truth? That was one he would never forget).

She was also wearing one of Chidi’s shirts.

The fabric was creased, its buttons were unevenly done and it seemed to fit her like a dress. Did she sleep in it, since he left?

There were marks of sand on her bare kneecaps, prints of the posture she had been in for minutes behind him. He didn’t need her 'begging' for anything. _His_ Eleanor was supposed to be fierce, to seem taller than she actually was solely due to her strength and determination. Michael placed a soothing palm on top of the tiny red spots and wondered how many seconds lingering there were exactly _too_ many. The sharp intake of breath she gave when the skin turned smooth again told him she was not expecting him to do that, and he found himself gulping when his eyes met hers.

“Shall I fix the other one, too?”

All she did was nod, but he could not dare to tear himself away from her gaze, so his hand crawled, probing, from one leg to the other. Five fingers spread down the mound of the bone and maybe her leg twitched when his thumb circled its curve, but Eleanor had always been ticklish ―and Michael had always been a demon― so it sort of made sense.

This time, he did not linger and drew his hand back rather quickly, turning his head to the front to look at the ocean. Out of the corner of his eye, he realized she was inching closer and dropped his head against hers when she rested it on his shoulder.

“Can you believe it took a nightmare for me to realize why you’re _actually_ not talking to me? All this time, I was going on and on about you lying to me. I thought you were ignoring me because you didn’t want to accept how much that hurt me. I thought you didn’t understand. But now, I know _I_ didn’t. And I think I understand _I’m_ the one who was hurting you.”

He was about to tell her this was not, at all, her fault, when she leaned on her side to press a hand to his chest. “Let me guess... It’s about what you got under this, isn’t it, bud?”

Yes. And no.

That was how he hurt himself, indulging in one of the simplest and most dangerous emotions human beings had: _hope._

He hoped they would never know, that his friends never found out the truth and just let him exist for the rest of time pretending to be one of them. Perhaps Janet could accept being different from the rest because she was content with who she was: not a girl, not a robot… but _a Janet_. Michael’s problem, on the other hand, did not depend on knowing he would never be human as much as it did on irrevocably being a demon. 

His lip trembled, so he looked away and cleared his throat. “It’s not your fault.”

“Michael-”

“What was your nightmare about?”

Eager to change the subject, he interrupted her softly with the first thought that popped into his mind, forgetting for a second that said nightmare had apparently been about _him_.

_Way to go, Mikey._

Eleanor sighed before her hand lowered from his chest to stroke the thin hairs on his arm.

“We were on Earth, during our trip to the States. And- And your human suit tore, somehow. After that, it was basically a messed up remake of King Kong, dude. But with demons, to add on it. My mom was there, she kept telling me to get away from you and I couldn’t tell her you were actually _you_ because I’d be dooming her to the Bad Place. But people were trying to hurt you, they thought… they thought you were some kind of monster. None of them understood. And I ran and I ran behind you, but you just kept getting farther and farther away. And suddenly we were in this city, it might’ve been NYC because- well, dream logic. And there were so many people, Michael… I didn’t give a crab anymore so I just told everyone the truth. I mean, in my book, they totally deserved to be tortured for eternity if they even tried to hurt you.”

Her palms covered her face, but he could bet she was not crying. Eleanor never cried over nightmares, she was simply woken up by her own gasps and then sought refuge in the arms of her current companion.

Would she be here, with him, if Chidi was still around?

“Shawn was also there, with the others… They still had their suits on, so they could pass as ‘model citizens’ and convince the military to take you down. I was so forking scared. _No one_ listened to me, I was like a ghost. Or maybe a crazy woman, like- I kinda did look like a freak, all desperate, screaming my lungs out. But what else could I do? How could I-”

Maybe she was not crying, but her voice was surely breaking, so Michael stretched out an arm behind her to pull her body closer, and combed his fingers through her hair. Eleanor’s hands closed around his middle and he looked down to see her nestling her face in his chest.

“How could I explain to them that you’re more of a human than any of those demons? That you’re more human than most of us? But then The Rock showed up and-”

“You don’t think I’m a monster?” His voice was barely audible, but the weight of her words was only now landing on him.

He felt her fingers sliding through the fabric of his shirt when Eleanor pulled back to meet his eyes. Shaking her head in disbelief, she scoffed.

“I knew it. Shirt, how could I be so forking blind? All these days… missing you like crazy, being angry at you because I thought you were angry at me. I was so wrong. I’m sorry, man. I’m really, really sorry.”

“What are you saying?”

“Wanna know what the forking scariest part of that dream was? Don’t get me wrong, I totally shart bricks when Shawn tried to use me as a human cannonball, but… the worst part was that _you_ weren’t listening, either. You were so forking big and your head was so far up in the sky that, no matter how loudly I yelled, you couldn’t hear me. I kept asking you why you were running away, why you left to a stupid city instead of hiding in the Grand Canyon with me or something until we found a way to get you back into your suit. But you couldn’t understand I was just trying to help you, to keep you safe.”

Eleanor moved even closer and cradled his face with her hands. “You didn’t understand that, knowing all this, I still… that I still- that’s nothing’s changed. Fork that, everything’s changed, for the better, because I know a little bit more about my best friend now. But in my nightmare… you were running away from _me_ , Michael. Because I never told you how much you really mean to me, with or without this hot silver fox look you got going on right now. So tell me the truth: are you angry at me, or are you just running away?”

She lowered her hands when he leaned into her touch, so he looked away, smiling sadly.

“I can’t speak for the version of myself your subconscious manufactured, but… I would sure as There run to avoid hurting you. I think the question here is why on Earth would you chase me? I could-”

Scald her skin with his juices, tear her limbs apart with tentacles, knock her out with his smell… There was no real need to tell her that, even if he was driven by a certain selfishness in choosing to leave so much to his humans’ imagination.

Her raspberry blow forced him out of his train of thought.

“Like you could ever hurt me, you big softie...” Relaxing, Michael stretched his legs on the sand, and Eleanor then draped hers over his lap, searching his eyes. “Hey, are you seriously afraid of your suit exploding out of nowhere and setting your already super hot best friend on fire?”

He snorted, eyes drifting to every inch of her moonlit skin that was touching him.

“Is that why you’re here? In case our fragile bodies need some water to fight back some super dope fire from an ever doper fire squid?”

A hum escaped him before he looked up at her, taking in her still sleepy face, those bright, expressive eyes and that gorgeous smile. She deserved the truth or, at least, as much of it as he could bring himself to share. As much as he was allowed.

“I missed you. I always come here when I miss you.”

Michael felt himself blush under her warm gaze. He gave her a half smile and began playing with the grains of sand on which they were sitting, trying to take his mind off the fact that she was incredibly close, and that her fingers had not stopped caressing the nape of his neck in Upper Management knows how long.

He always came here when he missed her. The place where their friendship was born, where she gave him ―perhaps unknowingly― her own ‘ethics’ lessons and taught him the kind of being he actually wanted to be. Besides, the rhythmic sound of the waves relaxed him, made sense of a reality that seemed more simple to him only when things kept turning unexpected and strange.

Was that why she found him at the edge of dreaminess? He was surely exhausted after his trip to the Bad Place, met with the cold hit of his past and the threat of an uncertain future, but also the undeniable guarantee of a lonely prospect.

How many times did he sit on Australian beaches? How many curious glances were sent towards that guy (not a guy) who spent too much time staring at the ocean in a full suit? He saw them, he saw them all, his senses already used to being observed after an eternity in the literal worst job of the universe. But what could he tell them? 

That he had managed to save his friends, dooming himself and Janet to an eternity of punishment?

That he was forced to keep his distance from the woman he-?

Maybe he was trying to get used to it, to ease his mind into the fact that all five of them belonged somewhere he didn’t.

“I thought it would be easier, putting some distance between me and you guys, and especially- especially you, Eleanor. I don’t want you to feel the need to send me away, but I don’t want to force any of you to feel fear or disgust or-”

“Don’t say that.”

He looked up at her when she spoke, uncomfortably shifting in the sand but also aware of a comforting warmth soothing his chest.

_“They thought you were some kind of monster. None of them understood.”_

“Just so you know…” His thumb brushed a strand of hair away from her face as he struggled to find the words that deemed themselves enough for someone who took the place he had in her existence. Nothing more, but nothing less. “It’s not easy, trying to get away from you. And it’s not a pleasant experience, either. I guess that’s why I’m here.”

She sent him a dazzling and genuine smile, one of those he had not seen since the experiment started, and knocked one of her raised knees against his chest. “So basically you came here to mope your ash out instead of knocking on my door, which is like two blocks away from our office, and straight-up telling me you miss me? We’re lucky I came here so I can tell you how stupid you are.” She rolled her eyes, the words and the gesture contrasting with the way her arms tightened around his neck. It gave him the courage to trace his hand most of the way down her spine, settling just above the small of her back. Maybe he was getting a bit too daring, but the sleepiness could play in his favor. 

“Damn it, Michael. You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what, exactly?”

“It’s not the lies that hurt me. It’s that you lied because you didn’t trust us. You didn’t trust me. After everything we’ve been through together, you thought lying or hiding things was the way to keep our friendship safe. So I keep asking myself if that is what you think of me. I mean, did I ever say or do anything that led you to believe I wouldn’t accept you for who you are? Is it eating shrimp? Because I could _try_ quitting if that’s what it takes.”

His stare was probably too adoring, but it was hard to keep himself from bursting with emotions at the sight of the woman before him.

“You haven’t done anything. And it’s not the shrimp.”

“Oh, thank God!” She paused to sigh in relief. “But then, why did you think I wouldn’t- that your friends wouldn’t love you, just as much, or maybe… maybe even _more_ , if we knew this?”

There was a sudden lump forming in his throat, for too many reasons to even start counting them, so he allowed his hand to stroke the fabric of her ―no, _his_ ― shirt, and blinked hard a couple of times to clear his blurring vision. Unable to do so, he took his turn burying his face in her neck, nestling in her comforting words and her presence. She tensed briefly when his nose brushed her skin, but later dropped her chin against the side of his head. He didn’t mean to do that, but she was so soft and smelled so good, his hands were still on her back and her own were on his neck and-

_What if..?_

“None of this is your fault.” His voice was a bare mutter, low with the charge of secrets and shame. “None of you have ever done anything. But I know I’ll never be one of you. I’m- I’m a demon. I’m too different, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.”

She slightly nudged him with her shoulder, moving them both due to the mess of limbs they had become. “If we’re so different, how come I’ve never met someone so similar to me? Or felt as close to anybody else?”

His eyes closed against her skin, a light smile brightening his face. “Touché.”

“And don’t go all ‘oh, I’m a sad, mopey demon’ on me, got it?” The one hand that let him go made him guess she was shedding fake tears away from her face to join her mocking tone of voice. “You know you’re more than that. You’re… You’re a Michael, buddy.”

He pulled back suddenly, squinting his eyes at her. “That _is_ my name, yes.”

“No, dummy! Yeah, you’re Michael. But you’re also _a_ Michael. You might not be _exactly_ a guy, but you’re not a demon either. Didn’t the bearded old dude with the glasses in that book you’re reading say that our choices define us or whatever? So, not just a demon, not just a silver fox, not just a fire squid.” Her index finger poked his chest with each set of words before she pointed it at his face. “ _You_ are a Michael, because there’s no one like you, man. And no one's ever done the things you have. Literally, no one. You're all the things you’ve decided to be, and I think that makes for a pretty cool dude.”

Empty of words, or rather filled by those he could not tell her, he moved one of his hands up to the back of her neck and pulled Eleanor closer to press his lips against the top of her head, endlessly marveled by the heart and the brain of one girl from Arizona. For countless times, he had asked himself how it was possible for her to die as the most fascinating human being he had ever known and still manage to turn more and more wonderful with each passing day.

His mouth curled shyly when she gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek and, for a single second, he entertained the thought of-

_What if I..?_

One of her hands rested lazily on top of her knee while the other was slowly running the path from the back of his neck to his jawline, as he stared into her eyes, fixated on the reflection of the moon in her pupils. Truly, an ocean of emotions, a tsunami of character, each fiber in her irises a drop of all the things she was.

Damn it, he loved her so much...

“Stop thinking you’re not worthy of friends, of love or redemption. Fork worthiness, you’re way past that, man. Stop thinking you don’t deserve everything that’s good. Because I know you do, and I hope you try to see yourself through our eyes for a little bit. I wish you trusted me enough to see yourself the way I do.”

Oh, but he already had so much more than he deserved. He had a mission: getting the humans into the Good Place, fixing the system and keeping Janet safe. Perhaps that would pay his dues, earn him forgiveness for all the wrongs he had done throughout his existence and balance some of the evilness out: to take care of those he tortured, to protect the one he kidnapped, and to simply be grateful that he learned a lot along the way.

That was it.

There was only one more thing, though, one dream he so secretly cherished, one wish as ardent as it was impossible, but sometimes he wondered-

_What if I just..?_

Sometimes he wondered what his life ―or something akin to one― would look like if he had dared to make different choices, if he had thought himself worthy of taking a risk, or if he had been willing to give up control for two forking seconds.

What if he teared down the walls around him, only for a moment?

_What if I just told her?_

So he removed one of his hands from her back, sliding it through the curve of her waist before searching for hers on top of her knee. His fingers crawled underneath her own and landed tightly, one after another, on each of her knuckles. His eyes drifted down to their tangled hands and, after he gave them a squeeze, looked back up at her, the soft smile of an unspoken and long-owed confession on his lips.

There was only one person he wanted, and she was the one ―deserving or not― he could no longer have.

But she was so close, her breath hitting his face while practically every bit of her skin was touching his. And he was not entirely sure if he had truly caught her glancing down at his lips or if it had simply been wishful thinking, but hers were already parted and maybe- maybe he could just… _try_.

Michael barely managed to lean in when she suddenly looked down, turning her face away from his. 

“I wonder what Chidi would've done that night.”

The freezing breeze of the night abruptly hit him, her body not moving away but tensing and subtly losing contact with his skin, leaving only her fingers loosely laced together with his.

He fought back the cold with silence and drew his hand back.

“The night Glenn came, that is. You both are so much better people than I am. You guys would’ve known what to do. You know, you’re pretty different but I think that’s exactly what makes you such a great team. To me, you two are just… You’re so forking amazing.”

His eyes kept avoiding hers, and not reaching out to her while her voice broke was turning out to be impossibly hard, but-

“And all while I’m so stupidly selfish. I want so much… I want _too_ much, and definitely way more than I deserve.” Her voice paused to give room to a sniff and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wiping her face on Chidi’s sleeve. “I’m so tired of sacrifices, I’m so tired of losing people, of losing you two... It’s weird, but I kinda wish at least one of you were a little bit more selfish. I wish you thought about the things _you_ want, at least once.”

He wanted to tell her he _was_ selfish, since he was the one trying to pretend his past had not existed, acting as if he had not spent literal centuries hurting the woman before him, thinking himself entitled to something that came from her.

Hope. One of the most dangerous human emotions.

Her hand grazed his again, but he quickly raised it to cover his own face.

“Buddy, please, just look at me.”

Only when the first drop hit his cheek did he realize he was crying. So he didn’t look up. Instead, his knees lifted, forcing Eleanor to move her legs back, and his arms wrapped around himself in a hug that had too many nails dug into his skin to feel at all comfortable or even safe. But at least, it allowed him to hide his face from her, it kept her from seeing more than she already had.

It was funny, if not heartbreaking, to feel smaller and more lost next to humans that had not even reached their forties than he did with colleagues ‘alive’ since the beginning of time. The nine dimensions, the superior abilities, they could all go fork themselves right now. They did not matter. Even without those powers, she read him like an open book.

Things were easier when she didn’t remember the last reboot, when he could pretend they were not special for each other. Sometimes, he was not sure if showing her that Michael, in all his vulnerability, was even more scary than letting her see how evil he used to be.

Driving her away was not right and much less fair, but the image had turned ridiculous seconds ago, with her being impossibly close but somehow avoiding to touch him. The distance was sudden, unnatural and almost surgical. It did not fit them, but it seemed necessary.

The wandering hand landed on his shoulder and rubbed his back. 

“Fine, I’ll just keep talking then.” Eleanor cleared her throat and tried to keep her voice from trembling. She all but succeeded. “Say you want a guitar. You told me you want one… Say you know exactly which guitar you want, and you see it everyday on your way to work-”

“Why don’t I ask Janet for it?”

Curiosity might have killed the cat but anything worked if it meant driving the conversation away from _her_. And Eleanor seemed to appreciate his feedback, given that she let out a light, teary laugh at his question. At least the pressure of her fingers against his muscles was relaxing, because he lacked the strength to keep her at arm’s length.

“This is not a guitar Janet can give you. It’s not just a regular guitar, it’s a special one. So... everyday, you pass by the guitar store or whatever, and you look at it. You talk to it, you make her laugh, you spend time together.”

“With the guitar?”

His voice was muffled by the chamber he had immersed himself into, but she seemed to hear him.

“Just- let me finish, okay?” He nodded into his own arms. “Okay. You talk, you have fun, and then that’s it. You don’t tell the guitar you’ve been dreaming about having your own band, or that you’ve been watching Youtube tutorials before even getting it because ‘Phoebe had a point’. Damn it, you even tell her she and Ch- Cello look great together. Like, in the same music room or something.”

_What-?_

_Oh._

Oh.

“And then one day, you go to the store and the guitar is no longer there. Turns out she ran off with Cello dude. And yeah, let’s be honest, she loves him, she really does. But… she really wanted to be in that band of yours, you know? Let me tell you something: guitars can’t read minds, bud, so for a really long time she didn’t even know you wanted that, too.”

The tears started falling freely from his face by that point. Eleanor couldn’t see him, but she must have guessed it because the strength of her embrace increased and the pressure on his shoulders turned more urgent. Or maybe that was due to her own quivering breaths.

“Listen, dude. You gotta love yourself, you gotta go after the things you want. You have to know you’re more than worthy of any guitar you want. Because... Because if you don’t, then the news hit you when-”

Michael nodded, still looking down. “When it’s too late… Yeah, I see. I see that.” His voice was clogged, practically solidified with years of swallowing his feelings, a cyst in his vocal chords for each time he drove himself away from her, an entire eternity lost for all the things he told himself were not worth saying. 

A lump for all the times he did not _try_. And how could he possibly forget their most important lesson, the one they were basing their entire philosophy on?

Just try (when the time is right. Although, timing could be a bench).

And he missed her… In more ways than one.

So yes.

Showing her _this_ Michael was definitely more terrifying.

But Eleanor was always _there_ , so she ran a comforting hand through his hair and spoke in the softest tone possible.

“Are we gonna be okay?”

Maybe he could not bring himself to undo the improvised haven he had built for himself, the turtle-ish safe for what was left of his secrets, but he managed to look up at the ocean.

“Always.”

He felt a pair of lips kissing the spot above his shoulder blades. 

“Do you want me to go, or can I stay here until you feel better?”

Michael nodded, daring to steal brief glances in her direction. “It’s fine… But can we not talk, for a little while?”

A sad smile was sent in his direction before her palms reached out to wipe his face. “Of course, buddy.”

***

He woke up when the sun rose by the horizon, but kept his eyes closed for as long as he could. Only when the presence beside him shifted, he ventured a glance, now knowing that ―for better or for worse― the events of the previous night had not been an invention of his brain.

Eleanor smiled at him, the tangerine rays of the morning hitting her cheeks. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I.”

“So, how’s this for a slumber party? I did kinda owe you one.”

His eyes moved around their figures, taking in all the things absent from his last conscious memory: the sleeping bags, the pillows and the sheets, and finally lingering on the paperclip-patterned comforter that was covering his legs.

With a wide grin on his face, he turned to look at her. “I’m keeping this.”

“Of course you are. That’s why I asked Janet for it. You know, you’re a pretty heavy sleeper for a total newbie.”

Perhaps that was the peace, or maybe the drain of emotions. It could just be her company, too.

Eleanor propped herself up on one of her elbows, looking at him with a mixture of sorrow and warmth.

“Michael?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

With his head still resting on the pillow, he shrugged. “For what?”

She mirrored the movements of his shoulders and blinked tears away from her eyes, completely silent.

Having eternity left by her side seemed like a promising future. With plenty of time for all the things not yet said.

So he just nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Eleanor's nightmare is inspired by this prompt: https://whumpster-dumpster.tumblr.com/post/633269024897318912/stop-it-please-its-not-our-enemy-how-can and by Rose saying it would be kinda like King Kong between these two.


End file.
